Five ways “The Amazing Spider-Man” will differ from the previous movie franchise

When Spider-Man swings back into theaters, there will be some big changes in store for audiences accustomed to the previous franchise.

Yesterday’s preview of “The Amazing Spider-Man” yielded lots of new details about Peter Parker’s upcoming return to the big screen, but one of the most significant takeaways from the sneak peek event was confirmation of some of the ways this version of the webslinger will differ from his big-screen predecessor.

British actor Andrew Garfield puts on the webbed mask and replaces previous franchise headliner Tobey Maguire this time around, but that’s not the only big change audiences should expect from what’s being billed as the “untold story” of Spider-Man.

After seeing all of the new footage presented during yesterday’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” event, here are five more changes you can look forward to when your friendly neighborhood wall-crawler swings into theaters in July.

Mechanical Web-Shooters

Same Raimi’s “Spider-Man” franchise became the target of much criticism early on when it was revealed that Peter Parker’s webs would be an organic product of his mutation rather than the wrist-mounted mechanical devices he uses in the comics. That diversion from the source material is corrected in Marc Webb’s upcoming reboot of the franchise, as the new footage clearly shows Peter Parker developing, testing, and making ample use of artificial webs and a web-shooter with a red glow. In one particular scene, Peter is seen fiddling with the web-shooter and accidentally setting it off, resulting in his face being webbed to the device. In another scene, Spider-Man toys with a car thief before sticking him to a wall with a series of web shots — with the red glow of the web-shooter pulsing each time he slings a web at his target. There’s also a nice, up-close shot of the web-shooter itself in the new trailer for “The Amazing Spider-Man.”

Quipping while Thwipping

Rather than the progressively more angsty, emo Peter Parker we saw in the last “Spider-Man” franchise, the webslinger is clearly returning to his joke-a-minute roots in “The Amazing Spider-Man.” In the footage shown yesterday, there were very few scenes of Spidey in costume that didn’t also involve a steady stream of jokes coming from the wall-crawler. During the aforementioned run-in with the car thief, Spider-Man toys with the criminal for a while as only a high-school kid can, dropping to his knees when the guy pulls a knife and exclaiming, “Oh no, is that a real knife? Aargh! That’s my only weakness!” — only to stick him to the wall with a barrage of webs a second later. If nothing else, this film’s take on Spidey brings him back to being that playful brat fans love, but criminals hate.

Spider-Man is Public Enemy #1

With the exception of eternal Spidey-hater J. Jonah Jameson, the previous “Spider-Man” films were largely a webslinger love-fest, with Peter Parker enjoying life as a celebrated hero loved by the public. This time around, Spider-Man clearly won’t be winning any popularity polls, as the new footage included quite a few scenes in which Spider-Man is being chased, attacked by, or attacking police officers around New York. To make matters worse, much of that anti-Spidey sentiment seems to come from Gwen Stacy’s father, George Stacy (played by Denis Leary), a high-ranking NYPD officer. One especially tense scene shown during the preview event featured Peter and Mr. Stacy arguing about Spider-Man’s intentions over dinner and making things extremely uncomfortable for Gwen.

He Does Whatever a Spider Can

While past installments of “Spider-Man” on the big screen did a great job of presenting the range of Peter Parker’s spider-given abilities, “The Amazing Spider-Man” appears to be taking things one step further when it comes to Spidey’s enhanced agility and “spider sense.” In the footage shown during yesterday’s event, there was one particularly great scene in which Spider-Man is seen dodging bullets by first twisting from side to side and then flipping over the gunman in one fluid motion from a standing position. Rather than presenting his enhanced reaction time via a sudden switch to slow-motion (a la the previous films), “The Amazing Spider-Man” appears to take the opposite approach, with the world moving at normal speed while Spider-Man reacts instantaneously to everything that occurs. In the aforementioned scene, Spider-Man dodges left, then right, at the same time each shot is fired, and then jumps behind the gunman the moment the third shot is fired — mimicking the sort of blink-and-you-miss-it movement of real-world spiders when threatened.

Loving the Man, Not the Mask

During the preview event for “The Amazing Spider-Man,” actress Emma Stone explained that one key difference between her character, Gwen Stacy, and Peter Parker’s love interest from the previous films, Mary Jane Watson, is that Gwen falls in love with Peter, not Spider-Man. That difference might seem small when mentioned in passing, but it’s a key component of Peter Parker’s history in both the comics and, apparently, in the upcoming film. During one scene shown during the event, Gwen is seen telling Peter — who happens to be wearing his Spider-Man costume at the time — that she already worries about whether her policeman father will come home every night, and stresses that she doesn’t want to have the same concerns about Peter. Along the same lines, Gwen and Peter’s relationship appears to develop well before he dons a costume and starts fighting bad guys. When measured against the infamous upside-down Spidey kiss between Mary Jane and Peter in the first “Spider-Man” film and the struggles he had convincing Mary Jane to love him when he wasn’t wearing the mask, this dynamic should make for a major tonal shift in the reboot that sets “The Amazing Spider-Man” apart from the previous franchise.

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